Of course anti-German opinions are just as racist as anti-jewish.

Spainaids are white. Hispanics are not the same, as they are viewed as a mix of Spanish and South American Indians.

And some black too

In terms of the anti-German "opinions", I suppose whether or not they were racist would depend on the nature of the comments. What did they actually say?

@Dingleberry When I was in South America they seemed to have (in Venezuela at least) a system where the races of people where mostly white, black, indian or mixed. What I don't understand is why all of these get transformed into Hispanic when the enter the US. If I was a white British man who became a US citizen I wouldn't suddenly be a Britannic. I would be a white US citizen.

Come to think of it.... Britannic sounds rather good...

If its in the class of "don't mention the war" it isn't racist. My dictionary defines racism as "belief in the superiority of a particular race; antagonism of members of a different race based on this"

So whether or not somebody believes one race to be superior is the crucial thing.

@ Alder My point is German isn't a race. It's a nationality and the people of Germany come in many races. Jews are a... erm.... (has the Jews are a race/religion debate been settled yet?)... Being jewish is more than being born and living in a country.

Venezuela is 1 country out of dozens that emigrate to the US. Regardless of what you saw, there is a lot of mixture.

And many US surveys now have something akin to a 'background' question, which has 'Hispanic regardless of race', which indicates that there are white hispanics and black hispanics and everywhere in between. It depends on who is doing the surveying, since I'm not sure 'race' and 'race' always mean the same thing.

There's all sorts of weirdness. A black man born in Atlanta, whose family has been in the US for 300 years is considered 'African American', yet my family, who has been here 80 years isn't considered 'European American'.

Ghost, I like your definition, but I think it does not encompass the whole issue.

Sometimes the problem is not that someone thinks one race (ethnicity/skin-color/religion/etc.) is superior, but that another one is inferior.

Nazis, for example, did not think they are superior to the British, they actually considered all Anlgo-Saxon peoples to be a part of the 'chosen ones' and Hitler was very keen on getting ENG, the US and Scandinavia on his side.

Nowadays, you have a lot of people who're not racist when it comes to other 'similar' nations, but are totally biased to others.

@ Ivo_, I agree, my dictionary hasn't quite got it right.

tbh I think debating the definition isn't as important as debating whether or not certain things are right/justified/good/moral or whatever. It doesn't really matter what you call it for that.

First.....im GERMAN
So sorry about my spelling
But if that might be a reason that u say....hey learn english....u nazi...
thats a part of rassisum.
cause even if nazi wasnt a rasse itself it it something u juge somebody cause he isnt like u.
cause he comes from a nother contry and looks difrend like u.
what i dont understand is...sure what germany have done in ww2 wasnt right and was terrible.
and there is no excuse for that.
BUT on the other hand....
where tkae the americans the right to juge germany in that matter ???
what im saying here is...u havent been better in u short history..
look at the indians or the black ppls.
what im trying to say is...
first not any german is a NAZI...this times are long over...get over that
and
whatch infrojnt u owen door and gate bevor u juge somebody....
sorry...but i had to say something even my spelling is bad.

Most countries have a somewhat dark history, be it Germany or the US. But most of the people responsible for it are dead! It is just plain stupid to accuse an individual for being of a certain "race" or from a certain country. This individual had nothing to do with the countries history and did not choose to be born there.
What you should do is be aware of the history and learn from it. Sadly, as history shows, very few people do.

wow....my spelling was really bad that time...sorry hope u understand what i was trying to say..

"I'm not sure 'race' and 'race' always mean the same thing. "

Sometimes it means people are running competitively. Hope that clears that up.

"A black man born in Atlanta, whose family has been in the US for 300 years is considered 'African American', yet my family, who has been here 80 years isn't considered 'European American'."

But if that family were italian, and kept some italian traditions, they might be called italian-american, right?

Anyway, Hispanic has become a synonim for "Latin American-American", and yes, it lost any ties to race that it might have had.

Me and my wife are pretty damn white, and I'm sure we'd be considered hispanic if we were to go to the US.

""A black man born in Atlanta, whose family has been in the US for 300 years is considered 'African American', yet my family, who has been here 80 years isn't considered 'European American'."

But if that family were italian, and kept some italian traditions, they might be called italian-american, right?"

I have yet to see any form anywhere with a box that says 'Italian American'. It would be Caucasian, not Italian American or European American.

"I have yet to see any form anywhere with a box that says 'Italian American'. It would be Caucasian, not Italian American or European American. "

I'm sorry, I (sincerely) thought the discussion revolved around what people actually use in conversations or something, not exclusively what government paperwork states.

I stand corrected.

Italian American is an ethnic designation. Your ethnicity, your culture, derives from Italian origins.

African American more often designates a race.

The thread was not exclusively about government forms. But 'Italian American' and 'African American' are not answers to the same question, so I wasn't sure of the relevance of your post.

But to what cuestion is the answer "hispanic"?

lol, yeah, like on the Census form the only option for europeans to check off is "white".

Xapi,
As I am not Hispanic, its hard for me to answer, but I think the way the terms have come to be defined in America, the race would be 'Hispanic' and the ethnicity would be 'Mexican American' or 'Puerto Rican American' (which is odd in its own right, since PR is part of the US) etc...

But there is no Hispanic race, that's the point. You said it yourself: " 'Hispanic regardless of race' "

I don't think that is the point. As I said, race and race don't always mean the same thing. I have seen 'Hispanic' as race, and I have also see 'Hispanic regardless of race'. There is no uniform definition of what race is in this country.

Seriously, to get back to the OP, does anyone know what the "anti-German" sentiments were, and in which other thread?

And was it 'anti-German' as in the country, or 'anti-German' as in the citizens of Germany, or 'anti-German' as in any one of German origin regardless of currently location/citizenship?

I definitely consider myself a Swedish-American. As to African American, it's been my experience that that was merely a way to classify people of the negroid race without being offensive. (Negroid, Mongoloid, and Caucasian were the terms I learned in my 7th grade Social Studies class in 1979, they might be offensive now too).

Growing up in Atlanta, there was the n-word which was clearly offensive and derogatory. Then there were several other words that were clearly meant (at varying times) to refer to the same group without giving offense. These were primarily negro, colored, black, and African-American. It seems right now that referring to people as whites, blacks, hispanics, native americans, and asians works pretty well.

Basically most people will get the idea if you're trying to be offensive or not.

Actually, I remember reading somewhere that some decades ago, the "Hispanic" designation did not exist. The people who would now fall into that category would have put themselves in the white or caucasian category. I guess the differentiation has now been made in the cultural mind of North Americans.

Of course, even predating that, when neither African nor Asian Americans constituted any significant part of the population, the designation of "white" was practically meaningless and people used to differentiate between southern Europeans like Italians and Spaniards, eastern Europeans like the Polish and the Serbians, and western Europeans. There used to be a lot of intra-white racism, but I guess you all decided to unite once Africans and Asians arrived on the scene.

Read thread threadID=559390 to see what the comment was. Short version was someone made the statement to the effect that when americans think of Germans they think of Nazis which is a patently false statement in and of itself. We then realized this little jewish boy had been brainwashed by the jewish society in which he lived to hate all German's because the Nazis happened to be German.